


Counting to Five

by barbaricyawp



Series: Torture Tuesday [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: HYDRA Trash Party, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-01 13:59:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18801751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barbaricyawp/pseuds/barbaricyawp
Summary: Brock Rumlow has difficulty counting to five. He enlists Steve's help via torture.





	1. Chapter 1

They attach him to the wall using magnicuffs–apparently, HYDRA’s only useful tool in their arsenal against Steve. Like cowards, they’ve bound him face first to the wall. His chest and stomach are pressed flushed against the metal, arms splayed and legs parted.

The positioning is more metaphorical than tactical.

Like cowards, they surround Steve in a hesitant, semi-circle. He can make out vague, snide commentary about his body, about the compromising position they’ve wrestled him into.

But no one approaches.

Well, no one approaches until Rumlow. He’s not afraid of Steve like the others are. Afraid, yes, but Rumlow manages to work through it. There’s a reason HYDRA promoted him to commander; he takes particular joy in cruelty.

Rumlow slices off Steve’s t-shirt using a pair of scissors. He leaves the sleeves around his shoulders, but opens the flaps of the severed shirt. Cold air hits Steve’s naked back, and he flexes against the magnicuffs. Some HYDRA scum whistles. Rumlow shushes them with an amused laugh.

He runs something thin and warm along Steve’s spine. Steve doesn’t flinch, but he turns his head to the side, instinctively trying to see what it is. Always game to taunt him, Rumlow lifts it into Steve’s vision.

It’s a bamboo rod. About the length of Rumlow’s arm, as thin as his thumb. Steve groans.

“How many years have you been with SHIELD, Cap?”

Steve grinds his teeth. He’s learned with Rumlow there are no right answers. It’s best to keep his big mouth shut.

“Four?” Rumlow asks. “Five? Let’s round it up to five.”

There’s a whistle as the bamboo cane hurdles through the air, and then a bright stinging pain along Steve’s shoulder. He holds his breath so that his exhale is measured and slow. It hurts, but about as much as he expected.

“Count them for me, that was…”

Steve shrugs. The bunch of muscles smarts under the line where the bamboo impacted.

Rumlow clicks his tongue. “Well, I won’t count until you do.”

He strikes Steve’s shoulder again, the same exact spot where the cane landed before: just below his deltoids and above the tender tissue of his latissimus dorsi. Steve tenses before the impact, hardening the muscles. It makes the blow of bamboo all the more painful.

When Steve refuses to count, Rumlow strikes a few inches lower, finding the knob of his vertebrae. The skin breaks open and this time, Steve does wince.

Rumlow strikes him six more times on the back, each strike landing lower and lower, before he gets bored. He skims the cane down over the surface of Steve’s bruised and bleeding back.

He rests the bamboo rod above Steve’s belt. For a moment, Steve thinks Rumlow’s tired of this game, that he might stop.

Then he feels the scissors grinding against the leather of his belt, slicing open his trousers and underwear. Air trickles down his lower back, all the way to the backs of his knees. Steve closes his eyes against the humiliation.

The first strike of the cane lands under the bulk of his buttocks, where the curve meets thigh. Somebody snickers, “America’s ass.” 

The cane lands in three different places, creating parallel lines over Steve’s buttocks. He can feel thin lines of blood drip from the impact sites. 

“He’s sure got the stripes now,” Rumlow laughs. His laughter is echoed in the semi-circle of HYDRA agents, slowly advancing closer. Emboldened by Steve’s humiliation.

Rumlow lands a blow just over Steve’s tailbone. It sends bruising pain throbbing up his spine and, for the first time, Steve cries out.

“Ready to count?” Rumlow asks.

Steve shakes his head. “I could do this all day.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More caning, this time with car batteries. Rumlow continues to struggle to count. Requested by straight-to-the-pain, who gets me.

They magnicuff him to a metal chair that’s bolted to the floor. Never a good start. Especially when Rumlow drags the car batteries into the cell.

Car  _batteries._ Batteries. As in two of them. Steve’s eyes flick up to Rumlow, then settle on the dual batteries. He flexes his hands against the magnicuffs and accepts his fate.

“Not yet,” Rumlow says, noticing Steve bracing himself. He rests the wires over Steve’s wrists without applying the clamps. “Hold these for me?”

Steve’s eyes drift to the ceiling. “Yeah. Sure thing.”

Rumlow moves behind Steve to fetch something and returns with the bamboo cane. Steve groans at the sight of it, remembering the line of of welts Rumlow raised over his back and buttocks last week.

“You gonna count this time?”

Steve glances over to the twin car batteries. They lance fear through his gut. 

He swallows the lump of pride in his throat and nods. “Might as well. What am I counting to?”

Rumlow trails the bamboo rod over the back of Steve’s hand, following the line of the car battery’s wire. “Five should do it.”  
  
Making dead eye contact, Steve turns over his hands. He uncurls his fingers invitingly. “Five it is.”  
  
Rumlow canes the center of his palm. The moment Steve gets out a number, he’s already reeling back the rod for the next strike. By the time Rumlow strikes Steve five times, the meat of his palm is tender and pink.  
  
So Rumlow applies the car battery clamp to his sore palm, between the tendons of his thumb and index finger. The pressure alone is a raw pain in the cradle of nerves there.  
  
Rumlow applies the same attention to Steve’s other hand, and then the bottoms of his bare feet. Steve wasn’t braced for the unique sting of the bamboo finding the the sensitive arch of his foot. That smarts more than he expected.  
  
But nothing, nothing could prepare him for what happens when Rumlow turns the car batteries on.  
  
He’s attached one battery to Steve’s feet and the other to his hands, so that he can alternate the electricity between these limbs. Steve’s arms seize with the aftershocks while fresh pain ravages Steve’s calves and thighs. They switch so his hands are alight while his thighs twitch. The soreness of the caning becomes a muted, almost pleasant memory. 

Then, Rumlow turns on both batteries at once.

Steve loses control of his body in these moments. Each and every muscle shudders and convulses under the electricity. For a few, incomprehensible minutes, Steve honestly believes his body cannot handle it. That he’ll be blown apart by the electricity.

Somehow, through all this, he can hear Rumlow speaking to him: “Count to five, Cap,” he says. “Count to five and this is over.”  
  
Steve’s teeth rattle in his skull. The magnicuffs are burning into his wrists and ankles. He can smell the char of his own skin. Still, somehow he manages to grit out the numbers.  
  
When he gets to a chattering, wailing, “ _Five!_ ” Rumlow is true to his word. He shuts off the electricity, and Steve blacks out cold.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve vs. the razors. 
> 
> Requested by straight-to-the-pain.

“I think today is the day we make Cap flinch,” Rumlow announces to the spectators. 

He has laid five razor blades onto the table before Steve. Small razors blades. The kind that come in your average shaving razor. No longer than two inches each.

“So,” Steve says. “I take it you’re not a fan of the beard.”

Rumlow laughs and pinches one of the razors between his fingers. He’s wearing latex gloves. Bright blue. Like a surgeon.

Steve makes note of this oddity just before Rumlow drives the razor blade into the meat of his left shoulder. He must hit Steve’s cephalic vein because blood gushes from the wound in spurts, soaking Steve’s white t-shirt.

Rumlow leaves the razor in place.

And, sure, it hurts like hell. But, no, Steve doesn’t flinch. With near apathetic curiosity, he looks down at the wound and rocks his head from side to side. When he moves his neck, he can feel the razor shifting inside him. Cool metal lodged into the dense clutch of his muscle. Might as well get used to that.

“Looks like you got a few more of those,” Steve says. “At this rate, we’ll be here all day.”

“Good things come to those who wait,” Rumlow says. But he’s quick to pluck up the next razor blade and sink it into Steve’s abdomen, just between his bottom two ribs. 

Steve’s lungs are under there and he sits up straighter, taking great pains not to breathe too deeply.

He still refuses to flinch. Making dead eye contact with Rumlow, Steve turns his palm over and curls his fingers in twice.  _Come and get it._

This ticks Rumlow off. He drives two razor blades into Steve’s palm. One just below his fingers, the other dead center. The complex cradle of nerves there lights agony up Steve’s arm.

“I know counting is tough for you,” Steve rasps. “But that was four. One more.”

Rumlow grasps Steve by the hair, yanking his head back. The long stretch of Steve’s throat is exposed now. He’s already got the next blade gripped between his fingers. 

“Oh,” he says. “I know.”

Slowly, he scraps the blade against the inseam of Steve’s pants, along his thigh. Then, he sinks the blade into the soft tissue of his thigh. But he doesn’t stop, he presses his thumb against the edge to drive it deeper, deeper.

Steve’s eyes widen when he hits the femoral artery.

Blood gushes all at once from the wound, pooling between his thighs. Dripping onto the seat of his chair, down to the floor.

The bleeding is further exacerbated when Rumlow digs the razor back out.

Steve’s wrists are released from their bounds. He clutches at his gaping thigh, trying to stem the bleeding.

Rumlow drops something on his lap. A needle and thread. “Sew it up, Cap.”

Steve’s fingers are slick with blood, but he doesn’t have time to waste. He squeezes the wound shut and prays that this will be enough. 

Steve doesn’t have any surgical training. He doesn’t know how to suture a wound, but he knows how to stitch up his socks. He’ll have to improvise.

Finger slipping, heart pounding, Steve uses the same clumsy baste stitch now. Each time the needle sinks into his skin, he has to force himself to drive it deeper into the flesh so that the wound will close.

By the end of it, the wound is closed with a messy tangle of thread that gnarls the skin like a snarling mouth. 

“Looks pretty good, Cap. But I’m not letting you stitch me up any time soon.” Rumlow taps the wound twice.

With a thump of his heart, Steve realizes that he’s sewn his pants to his skin.


End file.
